This application claims the benefit of Korean Application No. 2001-63043, filed Oct. 12, 2001, in the Korean Industrial Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print head cleaning apparatus and an ink jet printer having the same, and more particularly, to a print head cleaning apparatus in which clogging of an ink injection nozzle of a print head is prevented.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an ink jet printer is provided with a carriage reciprocally disposed at a main frame. The carriage has an ink cartridge. A moving means reciprocates the carriage, which is supported by a timing belt and a guide shaft. The ink cartridge has a print head at a lower portion thereof. The print head is apart from a sheet of printing paper, which is transferred by a feeding roller, at a desired head gap so that ink is ejected from the print head to the sheet to print an image. In other words, the print head ejects the ink onto the printing paper sheet at a desired distance. The ejected ink forms the image on the sheet. A control portion of the printer controls an ink ejecting operation of the ink injection nozzle according to input image information.
In the aforementioned construction, after a printing operation is completed, the ink remains in the ink injection nozzle. However, if the printer is not used for a long time, the ink remaining in the ink injection nozzle coagulates. In this case, the ink injection nozzle is partially or entirely clogged with the coagulated ink. Therefore, a problem is that the ink injection nozzle cannot precisely eject a proper amount of the ink when performing the printing operation.
Furthermore, the ink injection nozzle may be clogged with a foreign material such as dust, which also deteriorates print quality. Therefore, there is a need for a device to prevent the ink injection nozzle from being clogged.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a print head cleaning apparatus and an ink jet printer, in which clogging of an ink injection nozzle can be prevented.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by providing a print head cleaning apparatus of an ink jet printer which is disposed to be movable between a printing position to eject ink from an ink injection nozzle of the printer to print an image on a paper sheet, and a cleaning position to clean the ink injection nozzle using ultrasonic waves, the print head cleaning apparatus including a cleaning liquid storing tank to store a cleaning liquid; a cleaning bath disposed at a lower side of the print head in the cleaning position, including a cleaning liquid inlet/outlet port, and an opened upper surface so that the cleaning liquid supplied from the storing tank is opposite the ink injection nozzle at a desired gap; a supplying portion to supply the cleaning liquid of the storing tank to the cleaning bath; and an ultrasonic device to receive a voltage from a power source and to generate a desired intensity of the ultrasonic waves, the cleaning liquid of the cleaning bath forming a column to contact the ink injection nozzle and to thereby clean the ink injection nozzle, the ultrasonic device being disposed in the cleaning bath.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are also achieved by providing an ink jet printer including a main frame; a guide shaft disposed in the main frame; a carriage reciprocated along the guide shaft, and disposed to be movable between a home position and a cleaning position which are respectively formed at first and second sides of a printing position of the carriage in which a printing operation is performed; a print head disposed at the carriage to be moved together with the carriage, and including an ink injection nozzle to eject ink to form an image on a paper sheet, the sheet being disposed at a lower side of the carriage; and a print head cleaning unit to clean the ink injection nozzle using ultrasonic waves when the print head is moved to the cleaning position.